With Marion Jones due to plead guilty today in a New York court from charges related to doping, the spector of unfair Games has once again raised its head. Marion Jones may be required to give back 5 gold medals from the 2000 Summer Olympics Games, but what effect, if any, will these admissions have on the Olympics, in general? When people watch an outstanding performance (especially in areas like Track and Field) will they, in the back of their minds, wonder whether that’s real or enhanced? Will more people become more cynical about the Games, no longer the arena of unknown amateurs, but now such high stakes athletics that people are willing to risk their reputation and their health to use illegal drugs to improve their performance?
I don’t know what the long-term effects of this revelation will be? Perhaps nothing. After all, maybe we already expect, on some level, that our favorite athletes might just be enhanced. It would be nice to see a return to the days when the Olympics were more “pure”, but I don’t think all the drug testing the IOC can throw at athletes can put that genie back in the bottle.
